The last few years of COVID 19 pandemic has put a spotlight on human mental health issues. The awareness, support and avenues for help available have become like never before. However, this is all incomplete. We are so focused on human mental health that we never took a pause to consider the mental health of our most important companions – our pets.

The Pandemic increased the focus on importance of human mental health. This resulted in a sudden and exponential increase of number of pet adoptions. In this entire hullabaloo, we forgot the very main aspect of this scenario. Pets are not an object that can act as a panacea for all our problems. They are living beings that need love, care and support similar to us. They have emotions and feelings, they love others and their hearts get broken too! Most importantly, stress affects them as much as it does us. 

Yes! Pets have mental health issues!

Who are we?

Animal Mental Health Awareness (AMHA) is an initiative to educate people about mental health requirements of pets.

Mission: To spread awareness about animal mental health and take preventative measures to help reduce pet mental abuse.    

Vision: A world which understands and respects the emotional needs of animals.

Visit our website AMHA to learn more about us.

In Canada, there are federal legislations, provincial laws, and municipal bylaws in place to promote animal welfare. In Ontario, the PAWS Act (Bill 136, Provincial Animal Welfare Services Act "PAWS" Act, 2019) provides standard of care regulations for anyone who owns a pet.

To read and learn more about PAWS Act, please visit ontario.ca/laws/statute/19p13.

Impulsive pet buying or adopting a pet without understanding the full scope of responsibility is the main cause of mental abuse in pets. Physical abuse and trauma due to unhealthy conditions is another major cause of mental illness in pets.

To address these problems, we need to educate people about emotional needs of pets and set up preventive measures to stop impulsive buying and mistreatment of pets.

How AMHA wants to bring change:

To stop the mental abuse, along with physical abuse, of pets, AMHA proposes following changes to pet licensing and regulations:

1. To control impulsive buying of pets, a pet license must be made mandatory before picking up the pet. The application process for the license will help the person to pause and carefully weigh their decision to own a pet.

2. The pet license process should include a checklist for the prospective owner to help them decide if they are ready to take responsibility of a pet. AMHA has created a checklist to help the prospective owner research information and make an informed decision.

3. Pet breeder should be responsible to check for the presence of pet license and maintain a record of license proof before handing over the pet to the client.

4. Breeding permit should be made mandatory for any person selling pets for profit. The permit should not be just required for large breeders, but should cover any person breeding pets with an aim to sell the pet babies, despite the number of animals in their premises.

5. Basic certifications should be made mandatory for any breeder running a business. Certifications may be based on knowledge and/or experience of the breeder.

6. Breeder facility should require certification of compliance to regulations and also subject to surprise inspections.